


Mark of the Jinni

by clarityhiding



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Pre-Relationship, it took four years but I finally got Tim into diaphanous pants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2019-08-22 11:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16596833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: Tim frowns, hand cupping Jason's cheek as he appears to study the other boy's face. "Just because there are others doing worse doesn't mean you don't deserve better."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 1: Magic/Sugar Daddy of JayTim Week! This is built on an old idea a friend and I used to toss around, so there is a definite chance I'll continue this in the future.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely chibi_nightowl. Thanks again, dear!

Museums in Gotham have a thing where every Tuesday, one of them will have free admission. Natural History on the first Tuesday, Metropolitan Museum of Art on the second, Science and Industry on the third, Aviation on the fourth—Jason knows them all. When times are good, they're nice places to spend the day, following around school groups, dodging adults who inevitably want to know where his teacher or parent is. The buildings are warm and dry in the winter and spring, cool and air conditioned in the summer and fall.

When times aren't so good, they're excellent grazing grounds. Free admission means larger crowds, making it easier to sidle up to someone and slip a hand in a pocket or an unattended purse. He only ever takes the cash, leaves the cards and photos in the wallet and drops it near the museum cafés or gift shops, where someone might've easily misplaced it, fumbling for change. No one has caught him yet, and while he's never made enough to actually afford any of the overpriced food at a museum café, Free Museum Day is sometimes all that keeps him going from week to week.

He's making his rounds of the Met the day that he reaches for a bulging pocket and comes up with something that definitely isn't a wallet. Normally, he'd put it right back—he only deals in cash, and he's so small that he screams easy pickings to any of the fences around Crime Alley—but something stops him. This isn't a wallet, but it's not like anything else he's ever grabbed before either. It is, for lack of a better term, a pot. A grubby little clay pot that niggles at his memory until he realizes why. Jason has been taking advantage of Free Museum Days since before his mom died, has been through every room of the Met and studied all the exhibits more times than he can count. Every other time he's seen this pot, it's been in a glass case in the back corner of the Gallery of Ancient Art, right next to a little plaque that proclaims it to be a 'Terra-cotta vessel with sealed stopper, believed to contain incense or perfume. Circa 1300 BCE, possibly Babylonian in origin.'

1300 BCE means it's over three _thousand_ years old. It's not something that should be in anyone's pocket, where it could get bumped into and broken. Something like that, you wear special gloves and carry it in a case with all sorts of fancy things like foam padding and climate control and stuff. Whoever had this in their pocket is a thief, a much better one than Jason.

The right thing to do would be to go to one of the docents and give them the pot. But then he'd have to explain how he got it in the first place, and why would anyone believe that someone else stole it first when they've got a professed thief right there? Screw the _right_ thing, what Jason should really do is put it right back where he found it.

All of this goes through his head in a flash, but even then that's long enough that the mark is gone, disappeared into the late afternoon crowd milling around the museum's entry hall. Which makes sense; if Jason had just robbed a museum, he'd want to make a fast getaway also. Should make one now. Just leave the pot somewhere someone'll find it and skedaddle before anyone tries to pin the theft on him.

It's not until he's back in the condemned hotel room he's currently calling home that Jason notices the hard lump in his jacket pocket. Feeling something halfway between wonder and trepidation, he draws it out to see that it's the pot, even though he's sure he left it on top of the donation box. Or… maybe he didn't? He's a little fuzzy on that.

Clearing a space on the floor, he carefully sets the pot down in the center so he can study it. It looks even dirtier on the bare, water-stained carpet than it did in the harsh light of the museum. The weak light of his electric lantern catches all the flaws in the clay, all the places the museum's restorers weren't able to clean off the dirt that has had multiple millennia to work itself into every little crevice.

In a weird way, he likes it better like this. Back at the museum in its glass case, the pot had always looked out of place, too plain and crummy next to the fancy urns and amphorae adjacent to it. Here, it fits right in. A little beat up, a little worse for wear, but also like it belongs. Like Jason.

Grinning, he reaches over and rubs his thumb over a particularly dark smudge of dirt that he's fairly certain wasn't there earlier. He's barely finished cleaning it off when a wave of _something_ pulses out from the little pot, tossing him across the room. He hits the boarded-up door of the room with a painful _thump_ and struggles upright just in time to watch in awe as the pot rocks violently back and forth until, finally, the stopper pops free and a cloud of red-gold mist pours out.

Normally, this would be his cue to hightail it out of here—this _is_ Gotham, he knows weird stuff means crazies and capes and _Batman_ —but the pot and mist are between Jason and the window, and the door at his back has been nailed up for years. He's trapped. All he can do is helplessly watch the mist as it first coalesces into a vaguely human shape, then shrinks and condenses until, at last, a boy steps out of the cloud.

"Hello," the boy says with slight accent. "I am called Timótheos. Are you my new master?"

 

* * *

 

Timótheos—or Tim, as Jason chooses to call him since that's a bit of a mouthful—says he is something called a _jinni_.

"Is that like a genie?" Jason asks before he can stop himself.

"Isn't that what I just said?" Tim frowns, his unearthly blue eyes flashing as he glances around the room. "You live here? I know the modern world has its extremes, but the last time I came out I was told all the wars were over. This looks rather post-apocalyptic."

"Whoever told you war was over lied. Wars are happening all the time, in places that look a lot worse than this," Jason snaps, feeling more than a little defensive. He tries to keep his space clean, but he can only do so much with what he has.

"Well, to be fair, my mistress at the time didn't actually _say_ there were no more wars, only that 'the war to end all wars' had just ended," Tim allows.

"War to… Are you serious? You haven't been out of that inky dinky little pot since _World War I_? That was, like, a hundred years ago!"

"It's not so bad. Time doesn't exactly pass for me when I'm inside; it's mostly like a long nap." Tim shrugs. "I dream a lot. It's nice. Very restful."

"Still, you missed all kinds of stuff. Apollo 11, rock and roll, _Star Wars_ , Batman—"

"What's a 'batman'?"

"Only just about the best superhero ever, after Wonder Woman. That's it, first thing tomorrow, we're going to the library and catching you up to speed."

Tim smiles, his entire being quite literally lighting up as a soft, red-gold glow seems to luminesce from his skin and the diaphanous pants that are his only clothes. "I'd like that. Most people just demand to know how many wishes they get and then use them right away. It will be nice to learn something about the world as it currently is before I have to go back to sleep."

Jason hesitates. He got so caught up by the fact that Tim's spent the last _hundred years_ in a little pot that he'd totally forgotten that genies sometimes grant wishes. "Are wishes a thing that you do, then?"

"Yes, I'm a wish-granting _jinni_. I grant three wishes to whoever releases me, and then I go back in the vessel."

"In the stories, you're always supposed to use one of your wishes to unbind the genie from their lamp," Jason says slowly. He spends a lot of days that aren't Tuesdays at the library, reading just about everything he can find, and that's definitely something that comes up a lot in stories involving genies. The ones with happy endings, at least.

Tim wrinkles his nose. "That's silly. Why would you curse a reality-bending entity to obey the owner of a vessel if the entity is powerful enough to break the curse at any time?"

"I think it's supposed to show the hero is unselfish. You have to live in the pot because you're cursed?" Tim is just a kid, one who looks even younger than Jason. What could he have possibly done to be cursed so horribly?

"I'm bound to the vessel because that's the way of my people. Some _jinn_ are cursed to obey, but my tribe does—did it as a part of our customs." He bites his lip, wrapping his arms around his middle like he's hugging himself.

"Something wrong?" It's the first time the _jinni_ has appeared anything less than sure of himself.

"No," Tim says quickly, the way someone does when they've made a mistake and they're hoping no one will notice. "I was just… thinking. Is there anything to eat? I'm sort of in limbo when I'm sealed up, but all that dreaming builds up an appetite."

Food is a good idea, and Jason presses his palms against his stomach, trying the head-off any querying rumble that might embarrass him. He didn't manage to get much before lifting the pot and leaving the museum. Most of today's visitors were little kids, and they don't carry a lot of cash on them. "I've got a tuna fish sandwich," he remembers suddenly, scrambling for the brown paper sack he dropped on the end table when he got back earlier. "You can have it if you want." Some kid in one of the school groups threw away an unopened and perfectly good bag lunch today, choosing to instead splurge on a overpriced pizza from the museum café. Jason ate the apple slices and drank the juice box at lunch time, but he'd saved the sandwich for dinner. He digs it out of the sack and offers it to Tim now.

"Thank you," Tim says politely before practically inhaling the whole thing in under a minute. 

"Wow. You must've been really hungry."

"It takes a lot of magical energy to come out. I'll sleep very soundly tonight." At this, Tim glances a little uneasily at the ratty mattress.

Jason lucked out, finding a room that still had a bed, which means the mattress has been kept up off the mildewed floor, but something in that glance tells him it still won't be nice enough for the _jinni_. "Sorry, there's only the one bed."

"I can sleep in my vessel. It won't reseal itself until you've finished making your wishes anyway. Speaking of wishes, give me your hand?"

"Okay…" Jason isn't sure what this has to do with wishes, but he gamely holds it out.

Tim brings it close and presses a firm kiss to the center of the palm. There's a sting of pain, but it quickly passes. "There," he says, sounding satisfied as he studies his handiwork. Three black feathers mark the center of Jason's palm in a triangle shape, like a very strange tattoo. "Perfectly centered. I'm getting a lot better; the first time I did that, the person moved and the feathers ended up sort of smeared all across their palm."

"What is it?" Jason asks, pulling back his hand to get a better look at the design.

"It's my mark. It says you belong to a _jinni_ and that you have three wishes remaining. When you want to make a wish, touch one of the feathers with your bare skin and state your wish. Yes, it will work with any body part, not just a fingertip; no, you can't accidentally use all of them at once if you make an 'I wish…' statement while clenching your fist; no, it won't work if someone else touches a feather and makes a wish; yes, wishes must be verbalized." Tim tilts his head to the side, obviously thinking. "I think that just about covers it."

"There's never anything like this in the stories." Granted, the stories are about genies, not _jinn_ , so maybe this is different.

"Probably because the stories are about cursed _jinn_. They aren't about to make things simple for their jailers, and most cursed _jinn_ are looking to cause as much chaos as possible." Tim reaches down to take his pot off the floor and hands it to Jason, smiling. His eyes are very blue. "I just want to make your life easier, however you let me."

Jason gulps, carefully wrapping his fingers around the pot to make sure there's no chance he'll fumble and drop it. "Oh. Well. My life is pretty easy right now. I mean, I got a roof over my head and I mostly get enough to eat without having to hustle. There're plenty of people worse off than me."

Tim frowns, hand cupping Jason's cheek as he appears to study the other boy's face. "Just because there are others doing worse doesn't mean you don't deserve better."

"You don't know that. You only just met me."

"Maybe, but I know already that you're a good person with an honest heart." Leaning in, the _jinni_ gently kisses the cheek he isn't holding. "Good night, Jason. I suspect in the morning we'll find I've been waiting for you for a long, long time." He flashes one last smile, this one quick and mischievous, and then suddenly he's smoke again, swiftly swirling back down into the little pot.

Cheeks still burning, Jason stumbles forward to place the pot on the end table where he can't accidentally upset or damage it in the middle of the night. Looking around, he finds the stopper under the bed where it must've rolled after popping free earlier, but when he tries to pick it up, it crumbles to dust. That makes sense; Tim did say the pot can't be resealed until Jason's used all his wishes.

It's not until later, when he's curled up in bed under a ratty blanket and halfway to sleep, that he recalls he never thought to tell the _jinni_ his name.

On the table, the little pot pulses with a dim, red-gold glow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even with a _jinni_ in the mix, things don't change that much. The boys take up a life of risk and automobile crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I'll eventually tell the entire story of Jason and the _jinni_ he found, but today is not that day.

The next morning, Tim comes out of his pot, a steady stream of red-gold mist that flows out and pools on the floor before swirling up into a boy. Jason is already awake, having sneaked out early to make sad eyes at the baker four blocks over until she gave him a couple of sweet buns that were destined for the dumpster anyway.

"Here," he says around the bun in his mouth, shoving the other one at Tim. "Breakfast."

"Thank you, master," Tim says, his tone polite and perfect as he carefully takes it. Today he nibbles where yesterday he gobbled. Maybe he doesn't like dry, day-old bread as much as he did tuna fish.

"I'm not your master," Jason grumbles. "You can call me Jason. Since you already know my name anyway, even though I never told you."

"Didn't you? I guess I dreamed it." Tim shrugs, apparently unbothered. "That happens sometimes. Time isn't exactly _now_ while I'm in my vessel. It's sort of everywhen."

"They can't be very good dreams. You don't even know about Wonder Woman," Jason says.

"I don't really remember most of them. Life wouldn't be any fun if I knew what to expect from it. And you said we could go to the library today so I could learn about her and the rolling rocks," Tim says eagerly.

"Rock 'n' roll," Jason corrects him. "It's a kind of music. We'll need headphones to listen to that, though, and I don't have any, so we better hope that Miss Gordon is at the desk. She usually lets me borrow hers." He pops the last of his bun in his mouth and chews thoughtfully.

"You know, you could wish for that," Tim says tentatively. "Not for headphones, maybe, but for money to buy things like that."

"That would be a waste of a wish. Money I can earn," or steal, sometimes. "Something like a magic wish should be saved for things I can't get or do on my own."

"Just, I don't know how things are now, but you don't seem to have much money," Tim says in a small voice, glancing around the room.

Jason bites his lip, tries not to immediately lash out. Sure, he doesn't have much, but he has a lot more than most street kids—heck, he has a roof over his head and a _bed_. It's not so bad. "C'mon," he says, hoping to his feet. "I have a hoodie you can borrow. It's big enough it should mostly hide your pants."

"What's wrong with my pants?"

"Well, it may be spring, but I'm pretty sure diaphanous pants are strictly for _after_ Memorial Day."

 

* * *

 

They pull up their hoods and slink into the library a little after twelve. "You hafta be really quiet," Jason whispers to Tim.

"Why?" Tim whispers back.

"Because it's a library. Also 'cause it's a school day and we don't want the librarians asking why we aren't in class."

"Why _aren't_ you in class? Don't you want to go to school?" Tim asks, because it was too much to hope that he might not understand what school is or how it works.

"Problem with school is teachers want to talk to your parents, and when they find out you haven't got any, they put you in the system," Jason explains, ducking down to sneak past the information desk.

"The system is bad?" Tim asks once they've put some distance between themselves and the librarian behind the desk.

"Very bad. Never been in it myself, but I've heard stories. It's not pretty what happens to kids in the Gotham system." Being made to run stuff for one of the gangs is the mildest of things that can happen. Jason has no desire to get involved in _any_ of that.

"What's 'Gotham'?" is all Tim has in response to that.

"That's where we _are_."

"Is it a city, a region, a province, or a country?"

"A _city_. Geez, you really don't know _anything_ , do you? Gotham is a city in New Jersey—which is a state, by the way—which is in America. That's the United States."

"I've been asleep," Tim hisses, puffing up and looking more than anything like an angry cat. "Last time I was awake, I was in a city called _Pari_."

"Never heard of—wait, d'you mean _Paris_? In _France_? Wow, never met anyone who's been to France before." Though considering Tim is several _thousand_ years old, he's probably been all over the world by now.

Checking all around, Jason grabs Tim's wrist and drags him over to the reference section. "Okay, history stuff should be somewhere around here…"

"What's that?" Tim points to the bank of public computers.

"Computers, but you need a card to use 'em without a librarian's help and I don't have a card."

"They're electronic machines?"

"Duh, of course."

"I can do electronics, they're _easy_."

Before Jason can stop him, Tim is stepping up to the nearest computer and touching the USB port on the front of the tower with a glowing finger. There's a flash of red and gold and then everything blinks _off_ and Tim disappears. It's the middle of the day so it's not dark, but nearly a full minute passes before things flicker on again and a slightly frazzled-looking Tim is standing next to Jason once more.

"What did you _do_?"

"Found out all the stuff I needed to know and did it a much faster way than reading a bunch of books, no offense." Tim flattens down his messy hair and gives him an easy, brilliant smile. "Jason, how would you like to make some _real_ money? No wishes involved, I promise."

"I ain't turning tricks just so you can sleep in nicer digs at night," Jason warns him.

"Nothing like that. I just need to know if you're okay with stealing. Oh, and if you know where we can get a jack and a tire iron, that would help immensely as well."

 

* * *

 

They muck about in the library, avoiding the librarian's eagle eye until it the day starts to dim, then sneak out with a gaggle of kids from some afternoon workshop. Tim didn't waste all that time, using the computer to locate where they could find the things he wanted, and Jason nabs the necessary tools from a garage while the _jinni_ distracts the mechanic with inane questions about engines. Once that's done, they make their way over to one of the side streets in the Diamond District where the valets for the various swanky restaurants in the area like to stash people's cars.

Tim plays lookout this time, keeping an eye out while Jason loosens lug nuts and makes off with over half a dozen high-end tires.

It turns out Tim's pot can act as a magical carry-all. Jason just has to lay the pot on the pavement and roll a wheel at it and the pot will just... slurp it up. "They don't mess up anything inside, do they?" he checks with Tim the first time they do it.

"Naw, they're just aether right now. Hardly take up any space at all."

"That's clever. I could lift an entire department store and no one'd ever guess."

"It's harder to get small things separated out of the aether again, though. The tires are unique enough that I should be able to easily pull them out," Tim says. "I mean, I think. Never tried this sort of thing before."

"Three thousand years and you've never tried this?"

"It's not like I was awake for most of that! Usually people just made their wishes and I went back in my vessel to wait for the next person to find it."

"…maybe we should wait before we try putting any more in," Jason suggests.

"Might be a good idea," Tim agrees.

 

* * *

 

They mean to cool it for a bit, really they do. Hold off, make sure Tim can get the tires out of his pot when they want to, give Jason some time to put some feelers out with some old contacts of Willis's who might be interested in a bunch of high-end tires and rims. But while they're walking back, there's this car parked in right up the street from Jason's place.

"That's Batman's car," Jason says, voice full of awe. He's seen it speed past occasionally, but he never thought he'd see it parked right out in the open with no Bat in sight.

"I bet it has very nice tires. The internets said there's a good market for superhero-assorted memorabilia," Tim says, slowing his pace and leaning down to get a better look.

Jason grabs him by the hood and yanks him back. "Are you nuts?! That’s _Batman's_ car! It's probably got alarms and tasers and all _kinds_ of security!"

"Electric security?" Tim asks, blue eyes dancing in the dim light of the street. A tendril of red-gold mist creeps out from his sleeve and under the hood of the car. "Not any more, it doesn't."

"Shit. Okay, you keep watch and make sure he doesn't come back, okay?" Jason says, pulling out the tire iron again and immediately setting to work.

They _are_ nice tires. Heck, he can probably get plenty for just the hubcaps alone, and he's really tempted to just leave it at that, but the tires are custom jobs with little bats in the tread and _everything_. He can't exactly leave them.

He's just turning the last one when someone clears their throat behind him, loud and deep and not even close to sounding anything like Tim. Jason tries to hightail it, but he only gets as far as straightening out of his crouch when he's picked up by the scruff of his jacket. "Hey, lemme go, you big boob!"

"I don't think so. Just what do you think _you're_ doing, young man?" Batman growls.

"Makin' a buck. What'd you do with Tim?!" he demands, scanning the area for the _jinni_.

"Who?"

"Oh, never mind." Hopefully, Tim got away scott free. Jason's definitely going to have words with him when he next sees him—the kid's a horrible lookout. At least this is only Batman and not anyone really dangerous.

 

* * *

 

Batman, the shmuck, takes Jason to 'Ma Gunn's School for Boys' because, "Maybe you can make something of yourself here." He's stern and commanding when he says it, like he understands anything about _anything_ in Jason's life, with his big shiny boots and his fancy car.

Mrs. Gunn ('Oh, call me Ma, dear') is all sweet and simpering to Batman when he hands Jason over, but quickly turns mean and nasty as soon as the door is closed and the Bat is out of sight, instructing the other boys to "snuff the stoolie."

He's able to protect the pot in his pocket, keep it from being busted as he's forced to fight them off. It's seven against one, not counting Ma, who only watches, and for one brief moment Jason considers touching one of the feathers on his palm and calling on some extra help. But something stops him—conscience or stupidity, he isn't sure which. All he knows is that these are his people; the kind he knows how to handle, how to deal with. Tim, with his delicate features and filmy pants, wouldn't stand a chance here. Magic can only do so much, and even if the _jinni_ could handle this, there are parts of his life Jason isn't ready for him to know about.

When he holds his own against the other boys despite all seven of them being bigger, older, and better fed than him, Ma Gunn declares Jason to be a 'sturdy fellow.' "Too bad you're a stoolie for the Batman, luv."

"I ain't—I mean, I'm not a snitch," he insists, quickly correcting himself before he can earn her ire. Even in the midst of fighting he saw how she was quick to point out the other boys' grammatical errors. "The Bat said I could come here or go in the system, and this looked like more of a fair shake."

Ma laughs, throwing back her head to make it a real guffaw. "Takes a lot of spunk to stand up to both my boys and Batman. Alright, lads—show him where he can sleep. He's starting lessons with you in the morning."

Jason is pushed and shoved up the stairs, not that he needs the encouragement to move. As elated as he felt at the prospect of getting a chance to resume his education, something tells him Ma Gunn's school probably doesn't teach quite the sort of things he's used to, and definitely not what Batman hoped it would.

He's thrown in a dark room with two bunk beds and is told to take a bunk half-blocked by an awkwardly placed dresser. There's no doubt in his mind that while the other boys may think it makes the location less desirable, it's exactly the sort of private nook he's been hoping for. Tugging up the scratchy blanket, he pulls out Tim's pot. He wants to check on the _jinni_ , but he knows anything he says is sure to be overheard by the boys in the other bunks, so he instead contents himself with glancing through the rim of the pot.

Though no light escapes it, there's a soft red-gold glow inside, exactly the same shade as the smoke that's spilled out each time Tim's come out. When he brings the pot up even closer, he thinks he can make out a tiny figure all curled up in the middle, fast asleep.

As he watches, the tiny figure uncurls slightly and looks him straight in the eye. "It'll be alright," Tim says, his voice so soft there's no chance anyone else can hear him. "Just be ready to get out of here when it's time."

It's a big leap of faith to take in someone who ran on him earlier, but he supposes even that worked out for the best in the long run, since it's better that only one of them is under Ma's eagle eye. With a little lingering trepidation, Jason nods, then carefully tucks the pot back into his pocket, curling his whole body around it.

Despite his nervousness, it doesn't take very long at all for him to drift off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Lessons the next day are exactly what Jason expected after the greeting he received the night before. It's all about which firearm is the best, how to knick a wallet, that sort of thing. The only time they get anything close to actual schooling is when Ma corrects someone's grammar, usually following the correction up with the back of her hand. When one boy gets caught lighting up a joint, she tells him off—but only because it's dope, since she dangles the bait of beer before them, then yanks it away insisting they all have to keep clear heads for some big heist she has planned for tonight.

After lessons, while everyone else is getting ready to head out, Jason hides in one of the upstairs bedrooms and pulls out the pot. "She wants to rob the art museum," he says when Tim peers out at him. "She's batty! An old lady and a bunch of kids? They'll never manage it!"

"I don't know. You stole my vessel just fine."

"That's different. Someone else already got it out of the case and past the alarms, all I did was lift if off 'em. And I didn't even have to work at sneaking it out, _you_ did that." Because the more he thinks about it, the more he's certain he _did_ leave the little pot somewhere before leaving. Not that he's regretting it ended up back in his pocket—Tim's a blast—but he wouldn't ever steal from a museum.

"I don't know much about alarms, but you probably have a point. Perhaps security will be heightened, with one item already missing?" Tim suggests, crawling out of his pot but with a minimal amount of smoke this time and still keeping himself tiny.

"Maybe, though I don't know if anyone's even noticed your pot is missing."

"That's fair." Sitting on the rim of the pot, Tim appears deep in thought. "Alright, this is what we're going to do." He leans over to grasp something in the red-gold mist inside the pot, tugging at something. "You pull it out the rest of the way, it should be long enough to let you reach the ground outside," he says, and when he moves away Jason sees an inch of rope peeking out of the pot.

"Running away? That doesn't help the museum, they're still gonna end up robbed," he points out, though he nevertheless pulls out the rope as instructed. It's long and sturdy, just the right thing to knot around a bed frame and rappel out a window with.

"Oh, I think I have a good idea of how to take care of that once we get out of here,” Tim says, looking entirely too pleased with himself as Jason pulls the last of the rope free and he slips back inside his pot. "Come on, time's a-wasting!"

 

* * *

 

Tim's bright idea is to wait until Ma Gunn and her boys have left for their 'field trip' and then directs Jason to the one car currently foolish enough to be parked in Crime Alley. "Okay, same as last time," Tim says, handing Jason the tire iron from the night before.

"This is stupid, Batman's gonna catch me again!" Jason argues, but he's still kneeling down and getting started on loosening lug nuts. He hasn't known Tim for very long but he's already finding it incredibly difficult to tell the _jinni_ no.

"Yes, exactly," Tim says eagerly. "When Batman catches you, you can tell him all about—whoop!" Suddenly he's gone, swirling down into a wisp of smoke that disappears into Jason's pocket.

"Jason, we talked about this," Batman says, stepping out of the shadows. "You agreed to go to school. I suppose this means it's Social Services for you."

"Oh, lay off!" Jason growls, pushing Batman away as he hurries to retighten the loosened nuts. "Some hero you are! That's a school alright—a school for thieving and crime! I only take enough to get by, that Gunn lady—she's teaching about guns and big jobs, giving kids booze so they'll agree to do whatever she wants, hitting them when they don't! I don't need anything like that, I can look after myself," and Tim, though really they're more like a team now.

"Mrs. Gunn is having those boys steal? I find that hard to believe," Batman says. "Her school is fully accredited."

"Sure—accredited in burglary! They're all off at the art museum, planning to steal some big fancy piece of jewelry. Museums have always done right by me, I'm not about to go and steal from one." He crosses his fingers in the shadow of the car as he says it, though technically he isn't lying—if anything, Tim stole himself out.

"Hey," someone shouts just then, "what're you doing to my car?!" Batman straightens and turns to reply, and Jason takes the gift he's been given and high-tails it out of there before the Bat can make good on his promise of Social Services.

 

* * *

 

"For the record, 'start stealing tires and hope Batman shows up' is a _terrible_ plan," Jason says as he rounds the corner and finds some shadows to hide in while Batman talks to the car's owner. Since Tim heard everything Ma said in 'class' today, he's going to assume the _jinni_ can hear him even when he's hiding in his pot.

As if to prove the point, Tim's voice floats up from his pocket. "I didn't see you coming up with anything better and it _worked_ , didn't it?"

"I nearly got sent to Social Services!"

"Would that be so bad? Aren't they the people who are supposed to look after kids who haven't got any family?"

Now really isn't the time to get into everything that's wrong with the system, so Jason brushes off the remark with a, "Sometimes no family is better than _state_ 'family'," and hopes Tim doesn't press any further. "Anyway, we don't need any adults, we have all those fancy tires we boosted yesterday."

"Oh, right… those…"

"What? What about them?"

"Remember how I said I could _probably_ get them out of the aether? Well, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I can't find them now. Sorry."

Ugh, this is what he gets for trusting _magic_ instead of depending on (slightly more) honest hard work. Though Tim's original plan is still solid, they just have to try again, on some different street, in some other neighborhood. Maybe the Upper West Side, this time.

As he's thinking, the sleek black car from last night speeds past, headed in the direction of the art museum. So Batman took his warning seriously after all. Well, good. Only… Only Ma has a lot of boys even without Jason. Sure, Batman is the caped crusader, the dark knight and all that—but he's only one man, and he hasn't even got Robin at his side tonight. Plus, Jason already kind of owes the museum, after taking Tim's pot.

"C'mon," he says picking up his pace to a jog, then a run as he chases after the black car. "He might need our help."

 

* * *

 

Thanks to Tim and his never-ending supply of useful tools that he _can_ find in his pot, Jason is able to scale the building after Batman when they get to the museum, spotting his location from the flap of his cape against the darkening sky.

He stays back when he rounds side and reaches the roof, not wanting to be spotted too soon and told to stay out. Batman has a lot of training, but Jason has heard Ma's entire plan, or at least the bit she was willing to share with the boys. He also got a pretty good idea of what kind of stuff she teaches them, which is a lot more than Batman knows.

He waits a half a minute, then scrambles across the roof to the open skylight, peeking in to watch the fight unfolding below.

It's pretty impressive—Ma even tries to pull the old, "You wouldn't hit a lady," line, but luckily the Bat knows she's no lady and socks her straight in the jaw. Jason's about to start rooting—and then he looks over the prone bodies on the floor and realizes his count of them is coming up short. Glancing around, he sees the final boy up on a pillar, about to shove off some huge glass geegaw.

"Batman, look out! Behind you!"

He doesn't get the warning out quite soon enough, and while Batman turns and dodges, he still gets knocked down, the remaining boy advancing on him with a gun. Quick as a cricket, Jason grabs the line Batman left hanging from the skylight and slides down it, remembering at the last minute to wrap his sleeves around his palms.

"I'm not gonna let you hurt him, Eddie," he says, taking a stance in front of the big black body on the floor.

"Oh, and what are _you_ going to do to stop me, snitch?" Eddie sneers, waving his gun around like the big bully that he is.

Jason has never liked bullies, whether they're adults or other kids and he learned ages ago how to deal with them. "Plenty!" he shouts, kicking the gun from Eddie's hand, then dealing his own slug to the other boy's jaw, hard enough to lay him out cold.

"Batman's getting up," Tim's soft whisper tells him, and he turns to give the man a hand.

"Are you alright?"

"I should be asking you that. Jason, what are you doing here?" Batman demands, because he apparently hasn't learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Followed you, didn't I? Couldn't be sure you'd actually stop them and not just help yourself to the goods." Batman may have made him put the tires back, but Jason's learned that adults can have weird double-standards when they feel like it. "Just as well I did, otherwise Eddie would've plugged you full of lead. You can't underestimate people just because they're kids."

"Kids…" Batman says, looking strangely thoughtful. He sighs and shakes his head, quickly tying up the whole gang and leaving them for the cops to find like a nicely wrapped package.

When Jason starts edging towards the exit, Batman grabs his shoulder and escorts him out himself. "What are you going to do now, Jason?"

"Split before the cops show up, if it's alright with you." The absolute _last_ thing he needs is to be found at the scene with Tim's pot in his pocket, after all. No way are the cops going to believe that it stole itself.

"You could always ride with me," Batman says. He touches something on his belt, and the doors of his sleek black car pop open.

"I dunno… You'll just turn me over to Social Services, and I'm pretty old. No way I'm gonna find a good home," Jason says even as he edges over to the passenger seat, stares longingly at the fancy seats. A chance to ride in Batman's car… Well, he can always make a break for it when it stops, he decides, sliding in and relishing the sinfully soft cushions.

Batman gets in and the doors close. "Well, I don't know about that. As you can see, I seem to have a vacancy open… Robin."

"Oh!" Jason says. If he's not mistaken, he's not the only boy in the car who says it, not that Batman knows that.

"D'you think I really could be? I mean, won't Robin be upset?" It hasn't escaped his notice that Robin hasn't been sighted around the city of late. He isn't normally one to keep up with the news, but knowing the routine of Gotham's heroes is very relevant to his usual tactic of avoiding them as much as possible.

Batman's mouth thins out into something that could be frown or a grimace but mostly makes him look all stopped up inside. "He and I have had a… difference of opinion. I don't think he'll been needing the Robin name anymore."

"Just so we're clear—if I say yes to this, it's not just the nighttime gig, right? It'll mean a bed and three squares a day?"

"I would foster you, yes. Give you a stable, healthy home that will allow you to pursue your interests and renew your schooling in a real school, not some crime front," Batman says, easily navigating the streets as he talks, slipping down dark alleys and narrowly avoiding the notice of most of those still out on the streets at this time of night.

 _A home_. Jason's heart clenches in his chest at the thought. It's not something he ever considered a possibility, not after his mom passed. Kids as old as him, from the worst part of town—they don't get adopted. When they're lucky, they get put in orphanages little better than Ma Gunn's school or moved from foster home to foster home until they age out of the system or run away. If they're unlucky, they disappear into the the dark belly of Gotham's human trafficking network, only ever turning up again as nameless bodies.

Jason should check with Tim first—make sure this is something he's okay with, that he doesn't mind them being taken in out of the blue. But this is too good a chance to risk losing, and something tells him Batman might not be so keen on taking him in if he knows it's a package deal with a _jinni_ included. "Mister, if you feed me, give me a place to sleep that doesn't stink of mildew, and keep the beatings to a minimum, I'll sleep in a coffin in whatever crypt you crawled out of."

That startles a full, booming laugh out of Batman, his entire face lighting up in a way that's completely the opposite of how he looked before. "Any 'beating' will be strictly at board and card games with the exception of some sparring as a part of your Robin training. And I assure you, I most certainly do _not_ live in a crypt." Still grinning, he pushes back his cowl, revealing a very familiar face, one that Jason saw only just this afternoon, when a couple of people stopped by to check on Ma's school and were completely taken in by her faking at teaching actual, normal lessons.

"You're Bruce Wayne," Jason says dumbly, staring. Bruce Wayne, local billionaire philanthropist, the richest man in Gotham and funder of more outreach and second-chance programs than all the rest of the city's uppercrust combined. Only the scummiest of scum on Crime Alley puts down Wayne; everyone else has benefited from his generosity one way or another over the years.

"That I am. Though you can just call me Bruce, when I'm not wearing this," he says, tapping the emblem on his chest before pulling the cowl back on. "Think you handle that, sport?"

"Yeah!" Jason says, feeling more sure of that than he has anything else this entire day. Slipping his hand into his pocket, he squeezes the little pot there. It may not be wishes and magic, but Tim's pot has been something of a good luck charm, not only getting his life back on a track it lost when his mom got sick, but actually putting him even further ahead than anywhere he's ever been before.

It's a little disconcerting, but Jason's not at all surprised when what feels like a tiny hand settles on his finger, squeezing back and reminding him he's not the only one who's luck and life have been turned around. Grinning like a fool, he leans forward, watching as the streets of Gotham speed past as they close the distance between them and _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumblr!](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/) Come visit if you want ridiculous AU headcanons, rants about the English language (and/or educational publishing), plague fangirling, adorable baby bats, and veeeeery occasional fanart.


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